How does uranium not contaminate nature with radioactivity if its naturally occuring?
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1) There is radiation around us everywhere at all times. Where are are will drive how much we are exposed to in the background. You are being exposed to radiation right now. But our bodies are used to this so it’s generally not that bad. Uranium is actually pretty safe to handle, just as long as you don’t breathe it in or lick it. There’s scarier stuff out there, like natural sunlight and radon, that we’re exposed to on a regular basis.
2) “Radioactivity” refers to how much radiation a substance puts out. Something that is not radioactive at all is not emitting radiation, something that is highly radioactive is eager to shed that radiation energy. Radiation itself is the energy that’s being emitted. And 99.9% of the time you can’t contaminate something with radiation alone, it has to be certain types of radiation interacting with certain substances. Otherwise, contamination only occurs when you mix radioactive stuff into non-radioactive stuff (like in the areas around Chernobyl, a lot of radioactive material in dusty particles got spread out and spread into the dirt).
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